Another Mans War: the True Story of One Mans Battle To
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another man’s war The True Story of One Man’s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan © 2009 by Sam Childers All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc. Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected]. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations also taken from HOLMAN CHRISTIAN STANDARD BIBLE. © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Broadman and Holman Publishers. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-59555-424-6 (tp) Library of Congress Control Number: 2009921619 ISBN: 978-1-59555-162-7 (hardcover) Printed in the United States of America 11 12 13 14 15 QG 5 4 3 2 1 To all the amazing, courageous children of Uganda and Southern Sudan contents 1. Notes from the Front 2. Whatever It Takes 3. A Lot of Stuff 4. Never Stand Away 5. Money, Missions, and Mercenaries 6. In the Wilderness 7. Anatomy of a Rescue 8. The Call 9. In the Palm of His Hand 10. War of the Words 11. Word Gets Out 12. An Extra Shot 13. Worth Every Tear Acknowledgments Photos another man’s war The True Story of One Man’s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan ONE notes from the front Death hides in the tall grass of Southern Sudan. What looks like empty landscape can explode in a heartbeat with rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army shooting, slashing, and burning their way through an unsuspecting village. Government officials and NGOs (nongovernmental organizations, like CARE, the United Nations, and the Red Cross) give these renegade soldiers a wide berth; they usually know where the trouble areas are and steer clear of them. Local residents, left to make it on their own, are constantly on edge, always afraid. There are no peaceful nights in the bush. None, that is, except in one place—a forty-acre island of safety and calm in the middle of a hellish, endless civil war. The Shekinah Fellowship Children’s Village. The struggle to keep it secure never stops. Gunfire crackles here and there outside the perimeter fence day and night. Whenever I travel in the area, I expect to get ambushed. I’ve had my windshield and my side window shot out. I’ve had vehicles, including a food truck loaded with groceries for the orphanage, blown up by RPGs. The LRA will shoot at anything, but they’re not used to anybody shooting back. They don’t expect to be up against a truckload of soldiers with plenty of guns and ammo, which is what they get when they tangle with us on the road. When I first started driving around in Southern Sudan, my soldiers and I got ambushed all the time. To any normal person that would be a bad thing, but I thought it was great. I went around hoping the LRA would ambush us because every time they did, it gave me another chance to take one of them out—leaving one less LRA soldier to hurt somebody else. Governments can’t run and hide forever, and one thing’s for sure—negotiating is a waste of time. Who knows how many villagers have been killed while people sit around talking about what a big problem all this is. But when you go out and kill some of the enemy, you’re making progress. You’re speaking the LRA’s language, and suddenly you’ve got their attention. Less talking and more shooting would bring this whole conflict to an end a lot sooner and save who knows how many lives. I once got an e-mail from an Irishman who said that when he first started hearing stories about me years ago, he thought I was a myth. He thought some of these reports were pure fiction and that my work in Africa was all a tall tale. I absolutely agree with him; the stories are hard to believe. If you come into Sudan even today, you’ll hear what people call myths about this crazy mzunga preacher (mzunga is the local African word for a white guy). As unbelievable as the myths sound, they’re the absolute truth. The important thing to remember, though, is that it was never me doing all these incredible, even miraculous things. It was always God. His power is the driving force behind every victory, every success. He’s always with us. I say “us” because whenever I travel anywhere in Africa, I always have soldiers with me. They are not mercenaries, though the news media often call them that. Frankly I don’t care what they call them. These brave members of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army have been trained, equipped, and put under my personal command by the Southern Sudanese government. Sam with Commander James in 1999 One day I was crossing the border from Sudan into Uganda with two trucks and four well-armed, well-trained troops. We stopped at the border checkpoint. There were a few Ugandan soldiers standing around a dusty little guard shack that needed a coat of paint. A couple of weather-beaten signs instructed drivers to halt at a zebra-striped board blocking the roadway. By this time all the border guards knew me and they didn’t make me go through any of the usual paperwork or luggage inspection routine. As I stopped beside one of the guards, he said, “Pastor, you can’t go any further.” “Why not?” “The LRA is attacking a village just ahead. You must wait until there are enough soldiers to go with you.” “Come on, that’s nonsense!” I said, pointing to my squad of uniformed men and at the AK-47 resting in my lap. “We’re soldiers. We don’t need to wait for anybody.” The guard looked at me with a serious expression. “Pastor, there’s over two hundred LRA out there.” Five of us, including me, against two hundred. I liked those odds. I figured each of us was equal to forty of them, so it would work out just about right. “I’m going,” I said. The guard cracked a little smile, shook his head, and took a step back from the truck. He knew he wasn’t going to change my mind. As I was about to pull out, I sensed God telling me to prepare for what was ahead. He wanted me to station a soldier named Peter on the roof of the truck with his .30 caliber machine gun. Peter Atem is a tall, regal- looking Dinka. “Peter,” I said, “grab your .30 cal and hop up on the roof.” Without hesitation he got out, climbed up, and sat cross-legged, cradling the big .30 cal in his arms. Another soldier sat next to me in the front seat with his AK. I had my AK across my knees with the barrel pointed at the driver-side door; that way I could pick it up and shoot one-handed while driving. Fully automatic, three- and four-shot bursts. I’ve done it plenty of times. I put another soldier on the roof of the second truck, then heard God tell me, You start driving. I eased off down the road with the other truck close behind. The road was rutted and dusty, so rough that you really couldn’t go more than twenty-five or thirty miles per hour, especially if you had a soldier with a machine gun on your roof. Even at that speed sometimes you’d think it was going to shake your liver loose. But plans for that particular day did not include keeping my liver happy. As we bounced and rattled along, God said, Drive faster. Okay, God, if you say so. I picked up more speed and heard the truck following us rev its engine to keep up. Faster, God said to me. Faster. Faster. And so I drove faster and faster until I thought I couldn’t keep control of the wheel. My hefty Land Cruiser was screaming along across the dirt, pounding into ruts, flying over rocks, shaking in midair like a Chihuahua passing a peach pit. When all four tires went airborne at once, Peter started hollering from up on top. “Pastor! Pastor! I can’t hang on any more!” He had one hand gripping his .30 cal and the other through the window opening, braced against the ceiling inside, legs flailing like a bull rider. Looking ahead I saw a tower of smoke a long way off, billowing up out of the dry brown grass. As we got closer, I could see LRA soldiers chasing villagers across a wavy, heat-distorted scene, flames and smoke roiling out from the burning tukuls, the villagers’ round thatched huts with mud brick walls. There was chaos and commotion, screaming and moaning from one end of the village to the other. God spoke to me again. Tell Peter to start shooting. Peter was a trained bodyguard and a dedicated soldier. He would do whatever I told him without question. I stuck my head out the window and hollered up at the top of the Land Cruiser, “Peter, start shooting!” Immediately his .30 cal started spitting fire.